Would Barack Obama Have Qualified for Booker’s Nest Egg?
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As a parent, I know that if you give one child something, you have to give the others something of similar value. If however, one child has special needs, no one objects if that child gets more, but what if the family has more than one? Does the blind child get less than the deaf one? To some Democrats, that question makes me a racist, or worse, a heretic.
Cory Booker’s campaign wrote me this morning, suggesting that every “black” child be given a thousand dollar savings bond so that when he or she grows up, she or he will have nearly $30,000 to offset the “privilege” that another child born to drug addicted, uneducated lighter-skinned parents in Harlan County Kentucky demonstrably has.
The kid born to a single, alcoholic and diabetic mother on a Navajo reservation? Yes, I know, I must be a racist because I’m carrying the wrong sign. I’m asking inconvenient questions like how does the money benefit the 17-year-old in jail for a minor drug offense? How many 18 or even 21-year-olds will blow a nest egg in 6 months? How many will invest it wisely? At eighteen I would have bought a car. What about your kid? Sorry for asking if there isn’t a better way to help people than race based revenge.
Some wheels are sqeakier than others. Some wheels have lobbyists with loud voices and lots of money. And of course it’s our grease we’re talking about.
Cory Booker, who according to gospel, owes his upper middle class status only to the blue-eyed half of his ancestry, isn’t the typical black person, although his genetic composition isn’t a rarity, but it poses a problem.
When we consider the reality of someone’s complex genetic code, we have the problem of having to adopt that repugnant, racist “one drop” doctrine arises. Just who is entitled to reparations and how much are they entitled to?
Many of the black folks I know here are of Caribbean origin, and others are of mixed and foreign ancestry. How do we choose who gets the money and how do we prorate it for the true ancestry and immigration history of the 25 million people in the US who identify as African American but who have Asian, Native American, Pacific Island, Hispanic and European ancestors? Do we bill Portugal, Spain, France and England to benefit the descendants of their slaves now living here?
Would Barack Obama have qualified for Booker’s nest egg?
No ancestor of his was a slave in America. How do we know just what DNA lurks in the cells of a person without a test. Let’s see – maybe 30 million claimants at how much per test? Would there be cheating? How do we document the number of slave ancestors for these people? Your guess is as good as mine and if you’re guessing there is more than one devil in these details, Just wait – you have yet to hear all those details.
So let’s see, there’s a little girl born to some nice, responsible and hard working parents in Alabama. They protect that government money and she takes title at 18 and uses it to go to college. How often will this be the case? Will her offspring get checks too – and theirs? More details, more devils. But why worry? Just hand out the checks and it will all work out.
Now look, I’m liberal enough to really give a damn about the forgotten and disadvantaged and oppressed, I just think a creative country can come up with a better way to create more opportunity more efficiently than to hand out cash as though to a beggar. Even I can think of several good ones. But how do we do that when we get shouted down by self-righteous Democrats?
Most of us know that since there’s still some connection between what gets done and the approval of the voters, the idea is a non-starter and an election loser. It boosts the image of the Democrats as not caring for the bulk of the population who struggle every day and being more the voice of doctrinaire zealots. Those former and now disaffected Democrats are going to vote for a crook and madman once again, not because they’re bigots but because they’re tired of being blamed for things they had no part in. Like most of them, I hope for a shared struggle and mutual respect rather than racial animosity and the hunting of witches.
In Case You Missed It: Reparations for Slavery? Ideas Like That Won’t Get Democrats Elected
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This would also create different classes of Americans, with different types and degrees of protection under the law. And because it assumes poverty and need based only on being of slave origin, it’s racist. Because it assumes that only black slaves suffered and that their current predicament is exclusive to themselves and not shared by other groups, it’s racist. But as I said, it’s more than unwieldy, it can’t be done fairly. Corruption will be inescapable. Bitterness will be inescapable, divisiveness will reign and there will still be prejudice – perhaps more of it, fueled by this program. Many or most of us had no ancestors here before 1865, many have ancestors who fought against slavery, were abolitionists and lived in the north and they are going to be resentful.
I need to point out to all morel crusaders that this is still some sort of democracy where power is vested in the voters and not in moral crusaders. I need to point out that much of the suffering in this world comes from trying to undo the past and seek revenge for it.
Sorry, there are too many homeless, too many hopeless who aren’t going to buy the notion that they have to be punished for their “white privilege” and the notion is a non-starter and an election loser.
We should note that none of the other colonial slave states like Spain, Portugal, England and France have suggested doing this.
I have to agree with Mike. Booker has really not thought this through. Although some might label me a liberal, which is OK by me, I am pragmatic and progressive. There is no pragmatism at all in this proposal. Probably the only positive thing that good be that it would put billions of dollars into the economy. The money would be far better spent in America’s education budget, especially in rural areas that often do not get sufficient funds. I have often been in discussions with any number of people about my belief that blacks citizens in this country have too long under served by the America’s education system. I am convinced that blacks, generally speaking, have not had sufficient time to have overcome the discrimination that was carried on by this country. Similarly, there are white children who have been under served in the same way. But only an idiot would consider handing these folks a relatively small amount of money in a lump sum. The amount of money they could hold onto for more than a day would be gone in an hour. Raising the standards for education, while providing a support system for young, poor children would serve far more people, both black and white, than simply handing them a check. The old adage “give a man a fish feeds him for a day, but teach him to fish can keep him fed for the rest of his life” comes to mind. To use Glenn’s analogy there are a precious few black children that would use the money for anything positive. Most would blow the money for a new car, gambling or drug drug purchases faster than one could count to 30. Improving their education would provide life skills that would provide for them for a life time.
Good point Glenn, booker has no idea what a can he has opened with this at all. I am as far to the left as any person can be without going full on anarchist and I think this is an ides he has not thought out to its conclusion. Now what about the kids like me, who have no clue about who or what lies back in their ancestor line and how would they go about claiming any of that money. I only know because my adoptive ‘rental units were very open, that I have black heritage somewhere way back back in the family line on the bio male sperm donor line, I want nothing to do with the bios to find out how to claim any monies but how would someone who might want to find out, well… find out, how to get any monies. Way confusing right for adopted kids. Booker needs to fade into the background
That headline pretty much says it all. I’ve never been a Booker fan and the faster he fades from view the better for the Dems, provided none pick up his mantle of ill conceived ideas.
My level of frustration with idiots such as Booker continues to rise. I have to wonder how he got to be a senator, much less a potential presidential nominee. This ridiculous bullshit, continuously touted by those on the far left, is what costs democrats elections. Booker’s entire game here is political. He couldn’t give one small damn about the plight of blacks in America.